


To live the life that I have made in song (It's just that I've been losing so long)

by ViolentlyRed



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bromance, Friendship, Gen, Hunter is güd friend, Leo Fitz is smol babbie and needs love and reassurance, Nightmares, The episode name is Rewind, tag to S5E5, the episode where Hunter breaks Fitz outta prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:42:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentlyRed/pseuds/ViolentlyRed
Summary: He had to admit, there were real tears that sprung to his eyes when Hunter walked through the door.Or, Fitz gets out of prison and the weight of the world kind of rests on his shoulders and his friends are in another dimension of something, but it's alright, because at the very least, Hunter is here.





	To live the life that I have made in song (It's just that I've been losing so long)

**Author's Note:**

> First AOS fic, been floatin' around my folders for a while, figured I'd post it. Enjoy! 
> 
> Beware Fitz's potty mouth. He's been through a lot, lately. 
> 
> Title taken from a song called These Days by Nico. Give it a listen, it's very pretty.

He had to admit, there were real tears that sprung to his eyes when Hunter walked through the door.

Because, wait, hang on. He wasn't soft - no, not the slightest. He watched soccer and did push-ups, for heaven's sake.

But after six months alone, drawing monkeys on his wall, eating poorly-cooked scrambled eggs, waking up from nightmares alone, beating himself up everyday for not finding a sign, a clue, not being smart enough, never good enough-

After all of that, he's running really low on hope at all. Six issues and Hunter hadn't even given him a sign.

But then he came. He walked through that door like the smug asshole he'd always been, suit and tie and glasses and heart-

So, yeah, Fitz had gotten a lump in his throat. Because honestly, with those two military baboons his only real human contact, who wouldn't feel deprived as hell?

And maybe he's held on too long. But - God - the feeling of someone else, someone else that cares about him, someone else that came to rescue him, the feeling of Hunter's stupid suit jacket arms as he embraces Leo tightly...

And then there's a hole blown in up the wall and Rusty crashes a helicopter, and honestly this has got to be one of the worst escape plans that he's seen in his life, but it's okay, it's alright, because Hunter found him, Hunter came for him.

Fitz changes into the flannel and the pants and the hat and relishes the feeling of true clothing on his skin for the first time in over half a year. The ghastly prison jumpsuit rubbed in all of the wrong places, but this guy Rusty clearly knew where it was at with these clothes. Even if they make Fitz look like he's going out to buy a tractor or something.

He collapses back into the passenger seat and realizes how exhausted he is. The last proper sleep he'd gotten was... Well, six months ago, and he'd been up most of the night scouring his books for something, anything to pop out.

"You alright, mate?" Hunter asks him when he stared out the window for too long at the rolling land.

Fitz shrugs.

They find the alien guy and then they find Robin and her mom. And the boss lady and her military buffoons appear once again, and then they're back in the RV.

It's twilight and they're driving toward Michigan. Fitz sits in the back, staring at a laptop and squinting his eyes in the hopes of finding more intel. Robin and her mom are curled up in the bed by the window, and just looking at them makes Fitz's body ache for a real bed.

Hunter claps a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of a daze. "How you farin' back here?"

Fitz scrubs his eyes, an involuntary shudder running up his spine. He feels a migraine start to press behind his eyes. "You're missin' out, truly. It's a party."

Hunter chuckles quietly. The shadows that the interstate lights cast through the windows dance upon the small table and trickle over Fitz's hands. "How 'bout you get some sleep, yeah? Big day tomorrow. Probably," Hunter says, all whispers and care and Fitz heart aches because he missed this so much.

But sleep isn't a good idea. With sleep comes nightmares, and Fitz would rather not have to deal with that at the moment, no sir. But Hunter drapes a blanket over his shoulders and leads him to the little cot in the back, and damn but if it doesn't look like the most comfortable thing in the world to his sleep-deprived mind.

So Fitz lies there and drifts, watches the headlights bounce off the ceiling. He curls up and lets his eyes slip shut. Because even if they're technically fugitives, he still feels the safest he's been in a while.

-

His dreams are skewed and grotesque, seeping into the corners of his mind that they shouldn't.

He wakes up panting, shirt sticking to his back and lungs the size of rasins. Everything feels wrong. Someone's trying to take him, someone's-

It's Hunter. His lips are moving, and Fitz realizes that there's a constant stream of dialogue that's been lost on his ears up until now.

"You're alright, mate, you're doing fine. You're fine, you're safe. You with me, Fitz?"

By now it's clicked- the nightmare and the RV and everything. Now all he can do is feel exhausted and dizzy and ashamed.

Hunter's got an arm around his back and one hand rubbing his bicep. "Fitz? Nightmare, mate. Thought I'd wake you before you woke yourself, you alright?"

He can't particularly remember this one, but he knows it was bad. Tears prick the backs of his eyes. He realizes that this is the first time in a long time that he hasn't screamed himself awake. Hunter, to his credit, is handling it quite well.

Fitz shudders and Hunter pulls him closer, and Fitz can't help the tears that start to stream down his face, for Jemma, for Hunter, for Robin.

"'S alright, mate. Fitz, you're alright."

And he's had such a shit six months. He misses his friends. He misses his family. Everything is a mess and he longs for simplicity. This life, over and over, is fucking him in the asshole with no lube. Time after time, his happiness is taken away from him.

And he's probably just feeling like this because it's three A.M. and he just woke up from seeing his framework self kill all of his friends again, and Hunter is the first person to see him like this in a while.

Hunter is the first _person_ in a while.

So he weeps. The first tears slip out, and Hunter's face falls. Fitz cries to curl in on himself, but Hunter instead pulls him in, and Fitz has got his face pressed to a shoulder that smells like woodsy aftershave and gunpowder and back road RV. Probably Rusty, he thinks to himself. His chest feels like it's cracking open.

Hunter has a hand on the back of his head, callused thumb tracing small circles into his scalp. Another wraps around his back. "It's alright, mate. You're here. We'll figure it out," he murmurs into Fitz' hair. It's intimate and kind and it makes Fitz' teeth hurt.

"I'm sorry," Fitz whispers. _I'm sorry for crying like a fool, I'm sorry you had to get my letters through a magazine, I'm sorry I dragged you back into this._

"Come on, none of that," Hunter says. He lets out a sad chuckle. "Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long."

They sit for a long moment. Fitz eventually peels his damp cheek from Hunter's shoulder.

"Better?" Hunter asks with a small, tired grin.

Fitz lets out a sad chuckle. His heart is still trapped in a steel cage of "whatifs'" and that hopeless, nagging feeling. But he needed that. He swipes the back of his hand across his swollen eyes and nods.

Existing kind of hurts right now. To make it like that, for six months in that hell, he had to go on autopilot sometimes. He couldn't think too much about the real world, couldn't think about the sky and the smell of grass and the taste of rain. He couldn't think too much about his family, even though they were on constant loop in his thoughts. Daisy, Coulson, Yoyo, Mac, May. Jemma. Keep surviving for them. He couldn't think too much about authentic Irish and Scottish beer or video games, not too much about real food and freedom. Don't get too sad, don't of yourself slip.

He got through prison, he's so blessedly thankful that he's out, but tasting the real world has brought all of the shoved-down emotions right back up again. He's exhausted, and here they are, messy and piled up, cried out, displayed uselessly in front of him.

He's a little ashamed. That he let himself break in half like that, a frazzled mess, halfway to dawn but still lost in the night.

Hunter doesn't seem to mind too much.

The interstate lights still fly above, and Fitz knows he's not going back to sleep.

_Wait_. Who's...

"Enok. Apparently he knows how to drive," Lance says, obviously enlightened.

Fitz laughs. He abandons the blankets and pulls on the hat that's fallen on the floor. "Lived for so long, makes sense, really."

Hunter stumbles his way back to the front of the RV and yells at Enok for taking too fast of a turn. Fitz watches this fondly and feels a little less alone.

Fitz breathes. It might be okay after all one day. Not easy, not in the slightest. But he's gotta hope. It might be. He'll work and he'll live and maybe one day.

He's gotta hope.

 

 

 

 

  



End file.
